Peter Mancini

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I start by thanking the House for its indulgence on this matter. I appreciate the effort of my colleagues. It is perhaps a good juncture to see the House agree to allowing me and the Conservative Party to speak to this issue.

We have had probably an hour and a half of very partisan and very heated debated on the opposition motion. I would like to talk a bit about gun control and the gun control registry, the history of it in the country and what it has meant to all Canadians. Let us not forget that we are here to represent Canadians in rural parts of the country, aboriginal Canadians and Canadians in urban centres, many of whom have different positions on the legislation because of their own different experiences and the different places in which they find themselves today.

Of course the history of gun control and registration is not new. Since 1877 Canada has restricted the use of some firearms to protect public policy. Since 1968 Canada has classified weapons as prohibited, restricted and non-restricted. In 1977—and this has been referred to by members in the debate—an act was introduced which created the firearms acquisition certificate. For a long time there has been debate in the House—this is not a new issue—about how firearms are to be controlled and whether or not we need gun registration.

Many Canadians have opposed the bill. When it was introduced in the House last year there was tremendous debate. Today we revisited much of that debate. We have to be clear that although the motion speaks to registration there is a rally opposed to Bill C-68 on Parliament Hill today. Much of the debate is focusing in reality on that bill.

This piece of legislation has concerned many Canadians on both sides of the issue. I have listened to many convincing arguments by Canadians and by their representatives in the House who oppose Bill C-68 and who oppose registration.

In my caucus the member for Churchill has been eloquent in presenting to me as the justice critic the interests and concerns of her constituents about the legislation. The member for Yukon in the caucus has told eloquent stories about aboriginal women in her community who use firearms as part of their daily lives and see in many cases Bill C-68 and the registration of firearms as an imposition on them and their historic way of life.

On the other hand—and this reflects the diversity in the country—I have heard from the member for Burnaby—Douglas about the concerns of his constituents in a very urban riding who say that gun control is necessary for them to feel safe in their homes and in their streets.

I have heard from my seatmate, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, eloquent stories about constituents who have come to him and said “We are afraid to sleep at night. We cannot sleep at night in this city in this country in this year because of the sound of gunfire”. We are not talking about Sarajevo. We are talking about Canada.

These constituents are Canadians. All these Canadians look at the legislation from their perspective and from where they live. If there is one thing Canadians expect from the House, it is that we take this most serious issue and do not play politics with it, that we take this most serious issue and reflect the concerns of Canadians on both sides.

The whole issue of gun control came from well-intentioned people. Its opposition is from well-intentioned members. When the Minister of Justice introduced the legislation I do not think he was trying to anger or that he did not take into account the concerns of rural Canadians and aboriginal Canadians. I do not think members of the opposition party when they were first elected and opposed this bill did so simply to play politics.

I think it reflects the real divisions in this country. We have always suggested that the legislation needed to be reviewed. We needed to take into account the aboriginal community, the rural and urban Canadians and find a way in this great country in our history of consensus building to meet the needs of all these individuals.

At the beginning of this debate the hon. Leader of the Opposition said that the Reform Party came here in part to make parliament more democratic. He called for more free votes. He called for better ways for us to discuss the issues of Canadians and Canadians' concerns. No party in this legislature has a monopoly on democratic reform.

We in the NDP have for a long time argued that there has to be a different way to deal with very contentious issues. We have called for the abolition of the Senate but that is not the purpose of this debate today so I will not go into it. We have called for proportional representation. And today on this issue we call for a free vote. Today on this issue we will demonstrate the commitment of our party to the reformation of this institution and ask for a free vote. We will vote that way in this party reflecting the diversity of Canadians on this contentious issue, reflecting the wishes of our constituents and reflecting our history on this issue.

Let us not forget that when this law was introduced there were nine members of the New Democratic Party in this House. Since then more than half of this caucus is newly elected. We spoke to our constituents about their concerns. I have given some examples of what those concerns have been. We will be voting freely on this motion before the House.

I do wish that the opposition motion called for a review of the firearms legislation. I do wish that the implementation by the government had proceeded in a better way. I do wish that we played less politics with this particular issue and listened more to Canadians. At the end of the day in this party that is what we will do. At the end of the day when the vote is called, we will vote according to that.

That being said, there are different merits on different parts of the legislation. As I have indicated I would be happier had both the government and the opposition attempted to find a way to change the legislation to make it accommodate all of the interests in the country. I believe that we can truly reflect the interests of Canadians in that way. I call upon the members of this House to do so.

Questions were put to the Reform Party whether there would be a free vote on this issue. The Leader of the Opposition questioned the government, will there be a free vote on this issue? Well, there will be for some of us. I throw that out as an answer.

I suggest again that the people who live in parts of this country that have genuine concerns about firearms ought to be respected, but so too and not at the expense of other Canadians.

We in this country have always found a way to compromise on the most difficult and contentious issues. We look to our parliamentarians and we look to our leaders for that compromise. We have proposed for a long time a review of the legislation, that we travel the country and hear the concerns of Canadians which I think is the Canadian way.

I thank the House again for its indulgence in allowing me my turn to speak.

[Judges Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her questions. I think she raises some good points. I want to address as many of them as I can in the time allotted.

The first one I would talk about is salaries and the issue of pensions for women and the lack of women judiciary in the country. This is an important issue. As a practising lawyer married to my spouse who is a practising lawyer at Nova Scotia legal aid, I say to the member that if she thinks that the rules for pensions are arcane for the judiciary, she should see what some of pension plans for the legal aid lawyers or crown prosecutors look like. In some cases they are a substantial bar to appointing women to the bench.

We need to go beyond that and this ties into the next point the member made and that is public confidence in the judiciary. I believe the member would concur with me that the reality is that part of the reason we do not have as many women on the bench or that we do not have as representative a bench as we should have is that the appointment of the judiciary in this country has for a long time been a reward for political favouritism. That is the reality and we may as well say it.

I could go through the annals and point to the members of the judiciary who have been appointed not because they were the best lawyers or because they had the best minds, but because they collected enough money for the right political party at the time. That is a historical reality we have to correct.

When we talk about public opinion and public confidence in the courts it is not enough until we amend the way the judiciary is appointed. I agree with the Minister of Justice in that I am not in favour of an elected judiciary in this country but the kind of method of appointment that there is south of the border.

When I say there was a missed opportunity, at the same time I think we could have looked at ways of improving the methodology of the appointment of the judiciary to take into account the needs of women lawyers and minorities and to ensure that the bench was better represented and that the public had confidence in the method of appointment.

The problem with political appointees is that even if the appointee has been involved in politics and would be a good judge, and there are some of those, they wear the disrespect of those who everybody in small communities particularly know climb their way to the judiciary because of political favouritism.

The hon. member has asked for clarification on the reason I do not support the bill. First of all on just those narrow issues, it does not go far enough to help public confidence in the judiciary. It does not go far enough.

She said that the NDP has always been a party that is proud to ensure that people are properly compensated. That is why I belong to it. At a time when the government has told us all and sent a message across the country that we cannot afford some of the essential things that we as Canadians have always believed were important, to turn around now and say that we have money to increase judiciary salaries by 8% or 13% and not provide money for legal aid and not provide more money for the crown prosecutors is why I cannot support it.

I said at the beginning I do not mind the judges making money so long as every other service is increased proportionately or more so where the need is greatest. That has always been our strength as a party in terms of social justice, in terms of making sure that the resources are fairly distributed. Because they are not we cannot support the bill.

[Judges Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-37, an act respecting changes to the Judges Act, changes to salaries with respect to eligibility for annuity, et cetera.

I will begin my comments by indicating, as has been done by some other speakers, particularly my colleague in the Bloc Quebecois, that there are some good things in this bill. I have indicated that in previous addresses to this House.

Clearly the creation of the unified family court in provinces in this country is an important step forward.

Like the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, I am honoured to serve on the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access. I would say that one of the difficulties in sitting on that committee is that it sits at the same time as the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

I appreciate the frustrations that both the parliamentary secretary and myself have had in trying to make both meetings. However, at the meetings we have attended, it has been clear that many individuals who have come before that committee have had experiences in provincial courts dealing with the issues of custody and access, and perhaps matrimonial property if the court has the jurisdiction to do that. In some provinces it may and in some provinces it may not. Then they find themselves before a superior court dealing with the federal legislation of divorce and a whole range of matters that have already been dealt with which have to be re-adjudicated.

The movement toward a unified family court is a good move. Were it not for other aspects of this bill, my party would support it.

With regard to the special joint committee on child custody and access, I mentioned the difficulty that the parliamentary secretary and I had in attending those meetings. That has been compounded by the fact that, like her, I have constituency work to do and voters to be answerable to. They are the most important reason we are here today and they are the most important priority for myself and for other elected members of this House. Unlike certain colleagues in the Senate who have a lot more time because they do not have constituents to answer to and they are only on one committee, we have had to divide our time between the many responsibilities that we have as elected representatives.

This bill moves in the direction of providing annuities and benefits to the surviving spouses of the judiciary. It provides a mechanism for the division of property for the judiciary.

An amendment was suggested by a member of my party to change the definition of spouse in the act. I will read the definition: “A surviving spouse, in relation to a judge, includes a person of the opposite sex who has cohabitated with the judge—”. In recent court rulings of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia and in other human rights cases there is some question as to whether or not the definition of spouse, which is an older definition in the act, will hold up to judicial scrutiny at some point down the road. It seems that we could have gone further and taken out the heterosexual nature of the definition of spouse in the act and saved it from litigation at some point down the road. However, that amendment was not deemed important enough to be brought forward.

Those are some of the good aspects of this legislation that are worthy of consideration. At the same time there are important areas that could have been addressed by the Minister of Justice in bringing forward amendments to the Judges Act that have not been addressed.

First, I will deal with the formation of the committee that reviews judicial salaries. I have said before and I say again that I think that committee could have been expanded. I appreciate that the Minister of Justice used a model from arbitration, where a member is nominated by the judiciary, a member is nominated by the government and a third party is nominated by both individuals. However, we could have expanded that committee. We could have included a member of the Canadian Bar Association. No one knows better how much work the judiciary does than the lawyers who appear before the courts on a regular basis.

Some of the judiciary in this country are exemplary. Some go beyond the call of duty. They work late nights. They accept responsibilities. When cases fall through, they go looking for other cases to deal with their workload. At the same time, we know there are members of the judiciary who are not as hardworking as others. As parliament continues to play an increasing role in certain areas, some members of the judiciary have simply retreated from making decisions.

For example, consider the results of Bill C-41 which brought into existence the maintenance tables that the judiciary now uses upon divorce. There was a time when the responsibility of the judge upon divorce was to inquire as to what the means and the needs of the parties were, whether the children were provided for, what special circumstances families had to take into account. Today many of the judiciary simply ensure that the guidelines are imposed. They say they have no responsibility to make further inquiries. They have abandoned that work.

I will again refer to the Divorce Act where in many cases the plan is put forward by the children. We heard on the special joint committee on child custody and access repeated calls for parenting plans to be put forward by parents of children upon divorce.

In many cases it is left up to the lawyers to negotiate that and to ensure that there is a checklist for the judiciary. The judiciary simply checks things off in the way a clerk might. They say “Well, you haven't filled in all the blanks, so take the divorce papers back and when the lawyers do all the work bring it back to me and I'll sign on the dotted line”.

When we hear that type of thing the bill falls short of what might have been done.

First of all, the committee could have been expanded, as I have indicated, to include members of the bar association and to perhaps include a member from the Canadian Union of Public Employees. The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents public servants in this country who are paid by the taxpayer in the same way that the judiciary is. Why not have someone sitting on that committee on judicial salaries who understands what other public employees across this country are dealing with in terms of their own expenses and costs of living?

It has been mentioned by both my colleague in the Bloc and the member for Crowfoot that the people who work in the court system, the people who work in the protonotary's office, the people who work in the deeds office and the people who sit at the feet of the judges transcribing what goes on in the courtroom have suffered as a result of the government's emphasis on deficit reduction, have suffered roll-backs and freezes at both the provincial and federal levels. It would have been very interesting to have a representative of the Canadian Union of Public Employees sit on the judicial salaries commission.

The failure to expand the committee is a flaw in the bill.

I also think, and this has been the crux of many comments from other individuals, that the size of the increase in pay at this point in time for the judiciary is one that we have to question. The estimates and the figures we have been given range from 8.4%, I believe from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, to well over 13% from the hon. member in the Bloc Quebecois. Either figure at this point in time we have to question, given the nature of what people in this country have gone through.

Further, given the fact of what we have seen in this country under the current economic policies, the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to increase. That ought to give us pause for concern as we move to increasing the take home income of some of the wealthiest people in the country by either 8% or 13%.

It is not that I do not think the judiciary ought to be well paid. It is not that I do not think the judiciary has a difficult and important job to do. However, at a time when those who work in the court system and those who appear before the courts are suffering, it is unacceptable that we give such a high increase.

I see my hon. colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough in the House today. He and I walked a picket line in Halifax. I must say that it was not a situation he was most comfortable with or used to. I had to give him a few lessons on where to turn and how to hold his sign, but he passed with flying colours. It was a sight to be seen. I think our picture appeared on the front page of the daily news. I am sure that Conservatives across that province will take great comfort in the fact that the Conservatives are now walking the picket lines.

However, on a more serious note, we walked that line with the crown attorneys for the province of Nova Scotia. We walked that line with the crown prosecutors in the province of Nova Scotia who were forced onto the street because they had been struggling with pay reductions and increased workloads and simply could not handle it any more.

The legal aid lawyers appear before the judiciary on the most serious matters every day, the most serious criminal matters, the most serious family issues that come before the courts on the questions of custody and access. They defend people who are charged with the most heinous crimes. The crown prosecutors prosecute those crimes to ensure justice is done. They have not had a pay increase. In fact they have had services and incomes slashed in the last four or five years.

I refer to section 41 in the Judges Act. I find this most interesting especially at this point in time. There is a section which allows and authorizes the court to pay for conference allowances, reasonable travel and other expenses actually incurred by the judiciary in travelling to conferences. As I have said I do not oppose that. I think it is important that judges attend conferences and that they understand and have an opportunity to explore the law.

However in my own province the travel budget for legal aid lawyers, and I am sure it is the same for any crown prosecutor, to travel to a conference to further educate themselves has been cut to the point where they cannot go. It is impossible. They have been told “We may pay for the registration fee but you pay for the travel allowance. You pay for your accommodations. You clear your schedule and find a lawyer who will cover for you. If you can accomplish all of that, you can go”.

Understanding the importance of continuing legal education, we have made provisions for the judiciary to have their reasonable expenses met. So what are we doing? We are creating a situation where the judiciary sitting on the bench will be even more critical of the lawyers who appear before them because the lawyers cannot afford to go to the same conferences to be as up to date on the law as they should be. How does that advance the interests of justice?

If the money is available for the judiciary, then we have to make it available for other programs. If it is not available for the other programs, then it is the wrong time to advance for the judiciary a pay increase of the magnitude which we have before us.

There are a few other important points to make. My colleague the member for Crowfoot from the Reform Party has raised some interesting issues on the question of the supreme court case which resulted in the creation of this commission and judicial independence. He and I have discussed the issue before.

The member says that we see an increasing role for the judiciary at the expense of the supremacy of parliament. I would point out that the supremacy of parliament requires checks and balances and always has. The idea that the British parliamentary system is one that has always met the needs of its population is one that is open to historical scrutiny.

It seems to me that on the very issue of universal suffrage, the Parliament of England refused to grant universal suffrage time after time after time up until the turn of the century. It was the charterists in England who I think first brought before the House of Commons in the late 1860s or early 1870s a petition of 1.6 million names of workers who asked for the right to vote and were turned down. They came back a second time with another petition and were turned down. They came back a third time with a petition containing I think five million names and were turned down. Had it not been for the labour movement and the organization of workers in England and in other countries in Europe, the sovereign House of Commons in England would not have granted universal suffrage.

Today the right to vote and the freedom from discrimination can be challenged in the supreme court of this country and other courts at the provincial level.

Had England had that charter of rights and an activist court, then the check on the supremacy of parliament may have provided for universal suffrage much earlier. I say that not to say parliament should not be supreme, but until we have real and radical changes to the way in which we make laws in this country, we have to have a check on this very House. The check has to be more than the opposition of the government.

The way the laws are made in this country is clearly available for anyone who wants to read a political science book. The cabinet and 20 people in the front rows of this House determine what the law will be. Let us look at Bill C-37. They determine what the changes are to be in the legislation. It is presented to the House. There is an airing of different views. It is presented to committee and committee at times can make recommendations and amendments. Realistically at the end of the day the majority of the government members because of party discipline will vote in favour of the legislation. The opposition members may vote against it, but the legislation will pass.

We ask ourselves where is the check on the supreme power of parliament? The check is not in the Senate. I found it interesting to hear the hon. member for Crowfoot mention the house of sober second thought where he hopes this bill will be examined. I find it interesting to hear the Reform Party speak in favour of the Senate that way. It will not be realistically challenged because the government also has a majority in the Senate. It will not be checked by the governor general. The only check on the power of this House and on the legislation put forward by the government is the judiciary. The judiciary does play an important role.

Unfortunately, because the bill has not gone as far as I would like it to, we cannot support it. I do not want that to be seen as casting a bad light on the judiciary. Given the economic times, given the fact that the bill did not go as far as we like, and I have not touched on the method of judicial appointment which could have been included in this bill and is an important factor, but given those situations and given the fact that my time is running out, I say to the House that we will not be supporting the legislation because it is a missed opportunity.

[Dna Identification Act, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the members.

The solicitor general has indicated that there were long deliberations before the standing committee on justice. There have been. Many members participated in that and many expert witnesses came before the committee. Many of us on the committee learned a great deal. We learned what DNA means. We learned how it is extracted. We learned how it is banked. We heard from many groups as varied as the national action committee on the status of women, police association representatives, the Canadian Bar Associations. Many groups had an interest in this legislation.

Many members in this House put forward amendments to the bill. They were well thought out amendments that concerned the way the bill would be in place and the process by which it would be accessed by both the police and the courts.

The solicitor general was correct when he said we attempted to achieve a balance between the civil rights of individuals, the privacy rights of individuals and the very compelling need for the police to have an important tool to help them fight crime.

The question of where a balance is met is always one that is open to debate. Each of us would have differing views as to exactly where on the scale we ought to shift some of the weight. I introduced amendments, some of which were taken into account by the government and incorporated in the legislation. Others were introduced in the House and have received support from most parties except the government.

It was my request that the period of incarceration for someone who would breach the privacy laws be extended from two years to five but that was not deemed appropriate enough for the government to support it.

It is important that the House with the passage of this bill will provide the police with an important tool to more readily address and solve crime. We cannot forget that the DNA databank is a tool of investigation. It is one more weapon in the arsenal of the police to allow them to bring forward information essential to assist the courts, the judiciary and in some cases juries in determining guilt or innocence of an individual.

It will assist the police in bringing forward charges and help them establish whether they have reasonable and probable grounds to determine whether a crime has been committed and a charge should be laid.

It will help society. It will citizens. It will help the police. We must always balance that with the rights of the individual. I expect my colleagues will address the issue of whether DNA samples ought to be taken at the time of arrest or at the time of conviction. That was the subject of a motion put forward by the member for Crowfoot and it received extensive debate in this House. My comments on that are well known.

I could not have supported that motion but it was still one view to balancing what is the best way to bring forward this legislation. There are others. I do not think any member was discouraged from making their views known.

We debated this issue extensively and I think as a result Canadians are getting a typical piece of Canadian legislation. It is one whereby compromise has been made and one whereby we hope we have come up with the best legislation. It is subject to review and there were amendments put forward during debate to ensure that it came before the House on a more regular basis. It will be reviewed by the House in a few years to determine whether we made mistakes, whether changes need to be made.

I acknowledge the many witnesses who came before the committee. Even though we may in some cases have disagreed with them, every member of that committee respects the views presented. We engaged in great debate and dialogue with those individuals and I thank them on behalf of my party and on behalf of the House for coming forward, for making the trip to Ottawa to give us what they felt was important information.

We have struck a bill. It may not be the best but it is one that my party can support. We have compromised to some extent but I think we still have protected the rights of individuals and provided the police associations with the necessary tool to fight crime. That is always a difficult balance. It is one that we have all struggled with but I think we have come up with the best we could.

[Judges Act, June 3rd, 1998]

The hon. member from the government says right.

But the reality is that the reason these dedicated public servants cannot access money from their provincial governments is that her government has cut the payments to the provinces for the last four years. This government has cut and cut and downloaded on the provinces. She sits there proud of that, laughs and takes pleasure in it.

These people cannot perform their functions but the money can be found to provide substantial increases for the federally appointed judges to the extent of over 8%. It is a substantial increase given the crushing burden that those who serve the public in the provinces are facing.

The parliamentary secretary talked a little about the appointment process which she defended. I questioned the Minister of Justice on this issue when she was before the standing committee on justice. She said there are committees in place and there is wide consultation. She is right that there are committees in place. It has been some time since I looked at the last committee in my own province. When I looked that committee was composed of a former campaign manager for the individual who had been the Liberal cabinet minister from my province.

I come from a small community where people wear their political affiliations on there sleeves so I knew who sat on that committee, I knew who was likely to get appointed. The last federally appointed justice was a good friend of mine and a good fellow. He had also been the collector of campaign contributions for the same cabinet minister.

That is not to say there are not good judges. I do not want to mislead the House or anyone who reads this. There are some very good judges who work long hours and deal with difficult cases and make good law. But there are some other judges. Part of the problem in the Judges Act is that there is no mechanism to keep in check or to make accountable or to separate the good judges from the bad or to separate those who are political appointees who do not perform their functions well from those appointees who go above and beyond their necessary work.

I thank the hon. member from the Bloc for bringing forward his amendment. I will be supporting it, because I think at this point it sends the wrong message. If the courts are struggling, as they are, with a backlog of cases and if the individuals going before the courts have not had increases, the lawyers I have mentioned, the crown attorneys and the legal aid lawyers, have had their wages either frozen or rolled back for nine years. At this point to suggest the judiciary ought to receive this salary increase is difficult for the morale of those who work in the courts and it sends the wrong message. And so I will be supporting my colleague's amendment.

[Judges Act, June 3rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I too rise to address the motion before the House. I indicate to the House that we will be supporting the motion from my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois.

I listened carefully when the member was presenting his arguments for this motion. He argued against an increase at this point in time for the members of the judiciary which this act to amend the Judges Act provides for. I concur with him on all of those remarks.

When this bill was first introduced in the House, I spoke against the bill. I said that at this point in time it was essential that moneys be returned to the provinces for support for those who are working in the courts.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice stood up and quoted statistics from other provinces. She said that there has been an increase in judicial salaries, and quoted my home province of Nova Scotia and said some 20% or 25%. She is right.

On Monday of this week I walked the picket lines with the crown attorneys for the province of Nova Scotia. They did not want to stop working but after four years of negotiations with the provincial government they could get nowhere in terms of talking about support services. They took the extraordinary step of work stoppage, of not attending court on Monday and Tuesday of this week. That is an extraordinary event in the history of my province.

On my way here today to speak to this bill, in fact walking across the street I was speaking on a cellphone with a lawyer in the Nova Scotia legal aid system. That lawyer has not been in court the last three days. It is because the judges have just received their 25% increase in salary and are on a judges conference. That lawyer cannot deal with the crushing caseload that has ended up on his desk in the last few days. It is to the point where they are spending their time answering complaints that have been written to their superiors. They do not have time to return calls. They do not have time to answer letters. They do not have the resources to cope with the crushing burden that the courts are faced with.

One of the examples that the crown prosecutors used is that they are still keeping file stats on those they are prosecuting on recipe cards. They do not have access to the Internet. They do not have up to date computers on their desks.

I know these matters all fall under provincial jurisdiction.

[Parks Canada Act, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I find that an interesting analogy. The hon. member has given us what he believes to be a success story of contracting out. I wonder if the individuals who live along the border states, where the minister of state has just entered into an agreement for co-management of Canada's parks, will feel happy if the contracting out of services goes to the Americans or if we go to some other nation to paint the signs, to mow the lawns, to bring in the machinery. I wonder how happy the constituents in this member's riding would be if the contracting out went to a nation with no minimum wage. I know that is his position. The workers in that riding would be forced to the lowest possible wage in order to maintain what was once their own land.

[Parks Canada Act, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad it took my comments to wring out of the hon. member that he sees these as historic treasures even in his own riding. I suggest that the people of his riding, if they have concerns about the protection of those very parks that he has so eloquently mentioned, question him on this bill and what it means. I wonder if those individuals will have to pay the same price for access to their own land that the tourists will have to pay. I wonder if those people understand there may be a downgrading in the privatization of the parks to the lowest common denominator. I am sure, given his comments today and the members of his constituency who are watching him, that he will have to answer those questions for them.

[Parks Canada Act, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to reply to that comment from the member who says he does not know where the head space is of the NDP. It is with the Canadian public and in the preservation of the things that the Canadian public from one end of the country to the other holds dear.

I understand the Reform Party will support this piece of legislation. Perhaps it is the beginning of unite the right or the merger the hon. member's leader speaks about. There is not that great a difference I guess between some Liberal thinking and Reform thinking.

The member says this is the most creative and efficient way to manage the parks. He asks if we are in the 1950s or the 1920s. We are moving well into the millennium when the preservation of the things Canadians hold dear will never be more important. We know where the Reform Party would like to go with Parks Canada. It would like to have a Disneyland and McDonald's on every corner. That is its mechanism for making money and becoming cost efficient in Canada's parks.

I am happy to respond to his comments and let Canadians know the difference between the NDP which has always fought to protect and preserve traditions of Canada and the Reform Party which has adopted the thinking of Ronald Reagan and the United States.

[Parks Canada Act, June 2nd, 1998]

Thank you. I acknowledge the applause from my colleagues from Nova Scotia.

On the island of Cape Breton in the riding of my colleague from Bras d'Or is the national historic park the Fortress of Louisbourg which is of great importance to the heritage and history of this country.

When I stand to speak on this bill, I do so from the perspective of a resident who sees the importance of these parks to their own areas in many ways.

I start by addressing some of the concerns that have been raised by the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis and the concerns of constituents in my riding and I think across the country on a fee structure for using national historic parks.

There has been some mention made that people who once resided in these parks gave up their land. It was a concern of the Bloc Quebecois member that those people be given reduced rates. I would go further and say that they be given free rates to the parks.

I can speak as one who represents people whose property was expropriated by the national government to ensure that there was a national park in Cape Breton to be used for the benefit of all Canadians. Indeed many people from all over the world visit that park.

Those people were farmers and fishermen, families who had lived on particular pieces of land for generations. The land represented their livelihood. They were prosperous farmers. They were prosperous fishermen. Their land bordered the coastline. They were self-sufficient. They farmed and fished all summer. They dried the fish in the winter and they preserved the goods from their farms.

That land was expropriated. It was expropriated for a good reason. It is important to preserve that area. Those individuals were relocated. They pay taxes to the Canadian government for the preservation of the parks. To ask them now to also pay a fee to enter land that was once their own is unfair. I know it will raise the hackles of the constituents in my riding. I have already received complaints about that very process.

As well I want to talk a little bit about the advisory council. We are creating an agency to manage the parks. We have heard that this is not a step. The hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis quoted the secretary of state as saying that this was not a step to privatization. We have not gone far enough to include the public in the debate about the management of the parks and what role the community should have in that area.

I am concerned when we delegate authority to an agency in that we lose some accountability. I say that having just had some experience with Nav Canada corporation. Members in this House will remember that was a private corporation, admittedly different from an agency, set up to deal with the flight service stations in various airports. When I asked it for a report dealing with the safety of individuals in my community, I was told it is not the corporation's policy to make that report public and I could not see it even though I am a member of parliament.

I have some concerns when we say that we are going to move Parks Canada from the full administrative role that the government has in administering Parks Canada to an agency that may or may not be answerable. I recognize that the minister will have some authority. At the same time we need to make sure that every individual member in this House who has a request for information for that agency is entitled to receive the information immediately or as soon as possible.

This party has other concerns with regard to amendments that we put forward, some of which were accepted. I still have great concerns when it comes to the personnel in Parks Canada. As I read the act and what the government intends to do, it gives no great comfort to the employees of Parks Canada. They have already been cut back in terms of numbers, leaving those who are left to pick up the additional workload. They have had their wages frozen and rolled back. They have had their work increased for less money. I know from speaking to people who work for Parks Canada in my riding that there are serious morale concerns.

Now we are telling the individuals who work for Parks Canada that they are going to be answerable to a new agency. That agency we are told would simplify organizational structures, improve administrative efficiency and allow more flexible staffing and financial procedures. Given what these individuals have been through in the last six to eight years, it seems that they have legitimate concerns about what those phrases mean.

I think we can read into those phrases, contracting out of services, layoffs and seasonal work with reduced benefits. I think we can also read into them less money in the hands of the individuals who work in those parks and who are the citizens who have given up the development of that land for commercial enterprises in order to ensure that all Canadians can benefit from it. That causes concern for me as a representative of the people who work in Parks Canada and who live in the surrounding areas.

I have concerns about the increasing fees at Parks Canada. Let us not forget that we have a number of parks across this country. If we increase the fees, I would hope that we do not see the parks getting into some kind of competition with each other whereby certain incentives will have to be offered at the Cape Breton Highlands national park to entice tourists from the new park located in Prince Edward Island or from Banff National Park. I hope that we do not begin a race to the bottom whereby the parks get more and more Disney-like in an effort to attract visitors.

As we move away from federal government financing of the parks, and I appreciate that we are looking at an 80-20 split here, 80% from the federal government and 20% from private revenue, we are on a very slippery slope where we may begin to increase the dependency of the parks on private financing. That then increases competition between the parks to attract the limited tourist dollars that come into this country. Once we do that, we move away from the ecological concerns and the preservation concerns of the mandate for having these national historic parks to creating a carnival-like atmosphere whereby the parks will cater to the lowest common denominator. I take the government at its word when it says we are not moving in this direction.

At the same time I am concerned that we are moving toward a more American style of parks system. As I speak to the House today I am not sure that members know this but it has been reported in “Environmental Dimensions” that on May 20 the minister of state for parks entered into an agreement with the United States regarding national parks along the border states. A co-management or a co-operation agreement has been entered into between Canada and the United States on managing the border area parks. There will be co-operation in management, research, protection, conservation and the presentation of national parks and national historic sites.

I do not know if members of the committee have been made aware of this but this country's national parks are something Canadians hold dear. They determine our identity. When people in other countries think of Canada they think of our national parks. They think of Banff in Alberta. They think of the new park in Prince Edward Island. The pristine waters. Those are the things that define us. Now we see that the minister of state has entered into an agreement to co-manage Canada's national parks that fall along the border between Canada and the United States.

Why in heaven's name would the minister do this? Why are we handing over the authority to manage those parks to another country? What does that mean in terms of Bill C-29?

It may well mean that personnel for border area parks could be American. It means that the new chief executive officer who will head the Canada parks agency will have to deal with the U.S. parks service. I am not sure the committee was aware of this at the time the bill was introduced. As I indicated, I do not sit on that committee, but I think it is worth questioning the minister in this regard.

The minister of course says for his part that he is delighted to have made the commitment to create a framework for future co-operation and co-ordination in conserving and presenting the national and cultural heritage sites. But these are our national and cultural heritage sites.

We see that kind of movement by the minister at the same time that we are introducing this piece of legislation to take some responsibility away from the government and to create an agency. At the same time we are talking about increasing user fees for the parks. At the same time we are not providing special incentives, if you will, for those who live in the areas so that they do not have to pay the same price to use the parks. It causes me concern as to where we are going with the national parks.

With those comments I indicate that the New Democratic Party has always been in favour of Canada's national historic parks and preserving them for the people of Canada and for the people in whose regions they exist.